Keeley Dark Side opinions

[CaineIsCarter]

Hi folks

I’ve read a number of mixed reviews on this pedal. It’s a lot of money but some of the videos sound very good, as close to Gilmour in a box as you could reasonably expect.

Am I right in thinking it’s delay OR modulation? Is it difficult to dial in? Overall, would you recommend it?

Many thanks

 

[RoyalBaby]

Yeh I think it’s delay or modulation which seems a shortcoming.

Seemed quite cool for seventies reggae noises so I might conceivably grab one if saw one going cheap. And, let’s be honest, having a Pink Floyd pedal and playing anything but Pink Floyd would be a small perverse pleasure. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one on a board, the big box Keeleys are a bit fiddly to use ( I have a super mod) and probably better suited to home/ studio experiments than live use.

 

[schenkadere]

It's definitely a cool and great sounding pedal(from the demos), but it looks like too much fiddling on a single box. Probably a lot of fun for bedroom play with it on your lap to easily tweak. The demos really are impressive to me.

 

[beninma]

Kind of cool but probably limiting too.

It is not that hard to go for a gilmourish tone. You need reverb, analog delay, possibly a compressor, a big muff type pedal. Phaser can come in on some other songs.

Getting your phrasing like him is the more critical part. This pedal will probably do some of his sounds easily but not others, and it might limit you in other ways. Building stuff up gradually might cost more than the $300 cost of this pedal alone but you end up with something that does a lot more stuff.

 

[Lawdawg]

Don't own one but have played through it. It's basically just a fuzz with 1 of 3 delay/modulation settings: (1) flanger/rotary, (2) delay, (3) phaser/vibe.

It's a high quality pedal with some cool features. The modulation settings allow you to blend between the two modulation types. For example on the flanger/rotary setting you can blend between all flanger, all rotary and everything in between. The delay is based on the Binson Echorec of course, and includes 12 different tape head modes -- nice! You can also switch the order of the fuzz and delay/mod in the signal path.

From my limited exposure, it sounded great and is versatile to a point, but is pricey for what is still a fairly niche product. I can get in the ballpark with other pedals on my board so it wasn't a pedal I would buy.

 

[Jerry_Mountains]

It sound great, I almost bought it but the fact that in a live situation you cannot choose between the modulations via pedal put me off.